Thursday, May 17, 2012

small things {adding up no's}

small things #30 ... adding up no's

Today I come clean about a few of my own annoying parenting "skills". I put that word purposefully in quotation marks because I don't actually consider them aspects of my mothering in which I take pride nor have I spent time and energy fine-tuning them. In contrast, these "skills" have a undesirable way of cropping up of their own free will and to my own embarrassment.

In reality, I have quite a list of unfortunate parenting irritations, but I was able to narrow it down to the top two. And now, with a flip of a coin, let's see which one I get to talk about today.

Heads - sighing.

Tails - no-ing.

And it's ... Tails! (sigh)

No.

One simple word that I made such a concerted effort to eradicate from my vocabulary when I first had Aaron.

No.

One simple word that sneaks into my conversations with my kids more than I'd like. (And sneaks back out of their mouths more than I'd like, too!)

When I'm really thinking about and endeavoring to be more positive in my dialogue with the kids, I try to re-phrase my negativos into positivos. And when I'm stressed, tired, overwhelmed ... I just say, "No". A lot.

Effort: Let's find something else to play with.

No Effort: Don't play with that.

Effort: Maybe we can have gum after lunch.

No Effort: No.

Effort: We can talk about some screen-time later.

No Effort: Don't ask again.

Effort: Stay in your bed, please.

No Effort: Do not get up again.

Effort: Please take your thumb out of your mouth.

No Effort: No thumb.

(sigh)

Now ... which answer would you rather hear. Yeah. Me, too.

Over the course of a day, I believe I would be sad and a little bit scared to add up all those "no's". How many hundreds of no's and don't's and not's would I end up with as bed time rolls around? (sigh)

Today is the day to start subtracting some negativity from my parenting ... and adding up positivity.

Adding Up No's ... the wrong kind of math in mothering. Saying, "yes", will give me the positive outcome I want.__________________________________

#4 - Name something you swore you'd never do when you had kids, but now find yourself doing.

That is a hard one. I must admit I said no too often when my children were growing up. Like Shell, I said it when yes would have been just as easy. I think it's pretty common. There are worse things to beat yourself up about though. :)